selfish.'
Paul listened to the conversation without stirring and with scant apparent interest but he did, it seemed, have his influence. With an arch look at him, Alicia said, 'Paul says Gervase should force Malcolm to give him power of attorney.'
I couldn't off-hand think of anything less likely to happen. 'Have you two known each other long?' I asked.
'No,' Alicia said, and the look she gave Paul was that of a flirt of sixteen.
I asked her if she remembered the tree stump.
'Of course. I was furious with Malcolm for letting Fred do anything so ridiculous. The boys might have been hurt.'
And did she remember the switches? How could she forget them, she said, they'd been all over the house. Not only that, Thomas had made another one for Serena some time later. It had sat in her room gathering dust. Those clocks had all been a pest.
'You were good to me in those old days,' I said.
She stared. There was almost a softening round her eyes, but it was transitory. 'I had to be,' she said acidly. 'Malcolm insisted.'
'Weren't you ever happy?' I asked.
'Oh, yes.' Her mouth curled in a malicious smile. 'When Malcolm came to see me, when he was married to Joyce. Before that weaselly detective spoiled it.'
I asked her if she had engaged Norman West to find Malcolm in Cambridge.
She looked at me with wide empty eyes and said blandly, 'No, I didn't. Why would I want to? I didn't care where he was.'
'Almost everyone wanted to find him to stop him spending his money.'
'He's insane,' she said. 'Paranoid. He should hand control over to Gervase, and make sure that frightful Ursula isn't included. She's the wrong wife for Gervase, as I've frequently told him.'
'But you didn't ask Norman West to find Malcolm?'
'No, I didn't,' she said very sharply. 'Stop asking that stupid question.' She turned away from me restlessly. 'It's high time you went.'
I thought so too, on the whole. I speculated that perhaps the presence of Paul had inhibited her from saying directly to my face the poison she'd been spreading behind my back. They would dissect me when I'd gone. He nodded coolly to me as I left. No friend of mine, I thought.
If my visit to Alicia had been unfruitful, my call on Vivien was less so. Norman West's notes had been minimal: name, address, sorting magazines, no alibis. She wouldn't answer any of my questions either, or discuss any possibilities. She said several times that Malcolm was a fiend who was determined to destroy his children, and that I was the devil incarnate helping him. She hoped we would both rot in hell. (I thought devils and fiends might flourish there, actually.) Meanwhile, I said, had she employed Norman West to find Malcolm in Cambridge? Certainly not. She wanted nothing to do with that terrible little man. If I didn't remove myself from her doorstep she would call in the police.
'It can't be much fun,' I said, 'living with so much hatred in your head.'
She was affronted. 'What do you mean?'
'No peace. All anger. Very exhausting. Bad for your health.'
'Go away,' she said, and I obliged her.
I drove back to Cookham and spent a good deal of the evening on the telephone, talking to Lucy about Thomas and to Ferdinand about Gervase.
'We are all our brothers' keepers,' Lucy said, and reported that Thomas was spending most of the time asleep. 'Retreating,' Lucy said.
Lucy had spoken to Berenice. 'Whatever did you say to her, Ian? She sounds quite different. Subdued. Can't see it lasting long, can you? I told her Thomas was all right and she started blubbing.'
Lucy said she would keep Thomas for a while, but not for his natural span.
Ferdinand, when he heard my voice, said, 'Where the hell have you been? All I get is your answering machine. Did you find out who killed Moira?' There was anxiety, possibly, in his voice.
'I found out a few who didn't,' I said.
'That's not what I asked.'
'Well,' I said, 'like you with your computer, I've fed in a lot of data.'
'And the result?'
'The wheels are turning.'
'Computers don't have wheels. Come to think of it, though, I suppose they do. Anyway, you've left a whole trail of disasters behind you, haven't you? I hear Thomas has left Berenice, and as for Gervase, he wants your guts for taking Ursula out to lunch. Did you do that? Whatever for? You know how possessive he is. There's a hell of a row going on.'
'if you want to hang on to Debs,' I said, 'don't listen to Alicia.'
'What the hell's that got to do with Gervase and Ursula having a row?' he demanded.
'Everything.'
He was furious. 'You've always got it in for Alicia.'
'The other way round. She's a dedicated troublemaker who's cost you one wife already.'
He didn't immediately answer. I said, 'Gervase is knocking back a fortune in scotch.'
'What's that got to do with anything?'
'How do you cope so well with illegitimacy?'
'WHAT?'
'Everything's linked. So long, pal. See you.'
I put the receiver down with a sigh, and ate dinner and packed.
In the morning, having paid a few bills, I took the hired car to Heathrow and turned it in there and, with a feeling of shackles dropping off, hopped into the air.
I spent four nights in New York before I found Malcolm; or before he found me, to be more precise.
In daily consultations, the Stamford voice assured me that I wasn't forgotten, that the message would one day get through. I had a vision of native bearers beating through jungles, but it wasn't like that, it transpired. Malcolm and Ramsey had simply been moving from horse farm to horse farm through deepest Kentucky, and it was from there he finally phoned at eight-ten in the morning.
'What are you doing in New York?' he demanded.
'Looking at skyscrapers,' I said.
'I thought we were meeting in California.'
'Well, we are,' I said. 'When?'
'What's today?'
'Friday.'
'Hang on.'
I heard him talking in the background, then he returned. 'We're just going out to see some horses breeze. Ramsey reserved the rooms from tomorrow through Saturday at the Beverly Wilshire, he says, but he and I are going to spend a few more days here now. You go to California tomorrow and I'll join you, say, on Wednesday.'
'Couldn't you please make it sooner? I do need to talk to you.'
'Did you find something out?' His voice suddenly changed gear, as if he'd remembered almost with shock the world of terrors he'd left behind.
'A few things.'
'Tell me.'
'Not on the telephone. Not in a hurry. Go and see the horses breeze and meet me tomorrow.' I paused. 'There are horses in California. Thousands of them.'
He was quiet for a few moments, then he said, 'I owe it to you. I'll be there,' and disconnected.
I arranged my air ticket and spent the rest of the day as I'd spent all the others in New York, wandering around, filling eyes and ears with the city… thinking painful private thoughts and coming to dreadful
